Scott C. Martin

Second grade couldn't end soon enough for Chad Elain. Show and tell only prolonged the agony of an endless May.

A parade of his classmates passed before him, some presenting the same items they had shown earlier in the year. Was it intentional? Did Jenny really not know that she had already brought her grandmother's locket from the old world? Did Jeff not remember bringing his amateur electronics kit from Radio Shack in October?

Chad remembered. He remembered taking one look at the amulet and knowing, just knowing that the jewelry was not 120 years old. It couldn't have been more than 20. He knew it was not made from pure silver, as Jenny had believed, but of some kind of cheap metal. Maybe aluminum. Chad looked at his teacher, Ms. Horvath, who was patiently smiling and nodding. Ms. Horvath didn't believe it was antique jewelry either. Chad was sure of the gentle deceit behind Ms. Horvath's kind face.

The electronics kit. Chad remembered Jeff's show and tell piece because he hadn't seen anything like it before. It was a piece of cardboard framed in plastic, with a dozen small metal coils wound into various solid-state electronic components. Capacitors. Resistors. Photoresistors. Light emitting diodes. A small speaker cone. All could be connected in endless combinations with the colorful bits of plastic-coated wire. Jeff had demonstrated how he had rigged a battery-powered buzzer that sounded when he touched the end of a wire to one of the coils. It was an extremely simple project, thought Chad, and not very interesting. He could do better.

And besides, the tension in Jeff's voice told Chad that Jeff hadn't built it at all. Jeff's much older brother had.

"That's wonderful, Jeff. Very impressive," said Ms. Horvath. "Chad, do you have any questions?"

Chad had been caught staring at the ceiling again. It happened a lot. He sat up, and ran his fingers through his unruly blond hair.

"Not for Jeff, no. Not today, at his time, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. "Sorry."

Chad's class was used to his awkward over-explanations. He knew that he could save himself a lot of trouble by just saying "no, Ms. Horvath," but he found himself unable to.

Ms. Horvath smiled. "You haven't brought in anything for show and tell lately, have you, Chad?" This was a rhetorical question. He had never brought anything for show and tell.

"No, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. "I haven't brought anything at all."

"Well, it's the second-to-last week of the school year," said the young teacher, standing from her desk.

Chad swallowed deeply.

"I hadn't planned on having show and tell next week, Chad, but you seem to have avoided bringing something to share with the class for an entire year. I believe it is also your birthday next week, no?"

Chad nodded slowly.

"So, for your birthday, I wonder if you wouldn't mind bringing something from home to share with the class. We'll have a special show and tell, just for your birthday. What do you think of that?"

"I think I'd prefer if we did not have a special show and tell, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. The class giggled at his formality, still strange and unexpected to them.

"Well, we'll discuss that privately," said Ms. Horvath. Several of his classmates turned to Chad, smiling. They knew Ms. Horvath was going to get her way.

"Don't forget a birthday snack for us," said Sue Brewer.

§

"I don't understand why I have to, though."

Chad was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter. His after-school snack sat uneaten. Sliced apple. Milk. Two crackers.

His mother was grinning, as she always did when Chad related some uncomfortable story about school. "Well, sometimes we have to do those things, you know. We need to do our best to... blend in."

Uncommonly tall and pretty, Chad's mom was by far less embarrassing parent for him to be seen with in public.

"Nobody else was made to," said Chad. "It's always been... if you want to, you could bring in show and tell."

"Voluntary," said his mother.

"Right. Voluntary."

Her eyes betrayed a mixture of empathy and fascination. In some ways, thought Chad, my mother is as bewildered with these events as I am.

"Well," said his mother, "I think you should. I think it would be good for you. Why not?"

"Man!" said Chad, exasperated. His mother had made up her mind in favor of the teacher's position. There was no getting out of it now.

"It's still kind of a new school for you, and there's no reason you can't still try to let your classmates know a little about who you are."

"I've been there all year, Mom," said Chad, glowering. "It's not that new."

"Don't make it complicated," said his mother, sighing. "Just pick something simple. Bring your football."

"Only babies bring toys," said Chad, repeating something he had heard his classmates say when Alice Ambrose brought a doll to show and tell. His eyes burned. Chad knew that had been a cruel and confusing day for Alice, one that he would not have subjected on himself.

"Okay, well then... how about one of your model rockets?"

The thought of sharing one of his actual enthusiasms with his class twisted Chad's stomach. It would only make him more vulnerable. He said nothing, and stared at his food.

His mother looked at him. "Well," she said, "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Chad poked at his apple. He already knew what he wanted to bring, but couldn't imagine a way to ask.

§

Ms. Horvath had called an independent study time for the class. While the rest of his classmates sat about the room reading or quietly talking, Chad pretended to concentrate on a worksheet.

"Um, Chad?"

Chad looked up from his worksheet. Jeff stood above him.

"Oh. Hi," said Chad. In the nine months of the school year, Jeff had never struck up a conversation with him.

"Hi. It's just... I saw you working on this yesterday," said Jeff. He held up the electronics kit. It was a mad jumble of criss-crossed wires.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," said Chad. "I should have asked."

"Oh, no, I mean... that's okay," said Jeff. In the jumble of wires, a meter quietly pulsed, its hand jumping from 0 to 500 Ohms every second or so. When it did, a small LED on the opposite end of the board blinked. The light and the meter were patched to a sequence of capacitors resistors, the same ones that Jeff had tried so hard to describe the day before. The battery was not connected. but the tiny solar cell was.

"I just tried something," said Chad. "It didn't really work."

Jeff looked blankly at Chad. "How did you do this? It's blinking."

Chad realized that Jeff didn't know— how could he?— the purpose and the failure of his experiment.

"Oh, it's supposed to... if you take it outside, and measure the difference in the time between the blinks, you should be able to multiply the...." Chad stopped himself. Jeff would never understand, or even care, that Chad was unable to create a device to measure the usable years of light left in the sun. Chad knew it had been a failure because his father, a physicist, had assured a nervous Chad once that the sun would burn brightly and normally for another five billion years. This little device told him that the sun only had about two billion years left. This was an unsupportable difference in data.

"It blinks about once a second," said Chad.

"Wow," said Jeff. "That's really cool."

§

That evening, Chad's father was reading in his chair. Whenever his father wasn't in the basement, he could usually be found sitting in his chair, reading.

"Dad?" said Chad.

His father put down his book. "Yes, son?"

Chad always considered his father as much a caricature of a scientist as an actual scientist. He was tall, heavily bespectacled, thin, and awkward. His face was serious and kind, his hair unmanageable at any length, and he made frequent and appropriate references to the unlikelihood that he had married a woman as beautiful as his wife.
Given his resemblance to his father, Chad also hoped to be as lucky.

"I have to bring something for show and tell next week," said Chad.

"Okay..." said his father.

"I want to bring the box," said Chad, blurting on the heels of his father's reply.
Chad's father looked blankly for a moment, clearly about to say "what box?" But then the furrow in his brow settled.

"Oh, son," he said quietly, a tinge of sympathy in his voice. Chad heard the unspoken 'no.'

"But Ms. Horvath said that I should bring something important to me. To us. As a family," Chad said.

The box sat on a table in the living room, placed just behind the lamp. It was perfectly square, four inches long on each side, and appeared to be made of a polished, milky alabaster. The cube was quite heavy, and though his parents called it 'the box,' it didn't seem to have a lid or a means of opening.

His father took off his glasses. "It is important to us. It is important to us as a family."

The box had always held a special attraction for Chad, and that was even before it was revealed to be a strangely important family heirloom. It was indescribably beautiful to him, for a reason that he couldn't describe. Often, when he heard the word 'home,' Chad realized that his classmates were all visualizing the houses they lived in, or the families who loved them. When Chad heard the word 'home,' his first thought was of the milky box on his parents' table.

The only time the box ever left that spot was when he and his parents went on vacation. Chad initially thought it was to protect it from theft, but lately he'd sensed that there was another reason.

"I warned you not to mention that box at all," said Chad's mother from the study.

"Yes, dear," said Chad's father, his voice curt. "A million times noted."

"Why won't you tell me what it does?" said Chad, going for broke. "Why do we need it? Why does it have to come with us on vacation?"

"Son, I promise I will tell you all these things and more," said Chad's father, leaning over and placing his hands on his son's shoulders gingerly. "Suffice it to say, however, that you aren't old enough. And that box can't ever leave this house."

"Why don't you lock it up if it's so important?" said Chad.

His father smiled. "I'll tell you that someday, too. But for now, why don't we go into your room and pick something out for your show and tell."

"Model rocket," said Chad's mother's voice.

§

The weekend had passed with excruciating slowness, and Chad couldn't even enjoy the oncoming summer due to the task that stood between him and freedom. He felt even more uncomfortable and foreign in his own skin than usual.

He stood solemnly in front of the class, blue and red model rocket in hand.

"Well, class, not only is it Chad's birthday..." said Ms. Horvath, who began to clap, which caused the seated class to follow with an awkward round of half-hearted applause. Chad's felt his cheeks prickle, as if aflame. "...We also have Chad's first and last show and tell of the year! Whoo!"

The class sat silent.

"Okay!" said Ms. Horvath who, Chad thought, seemed determined to enjoy the moment. "What did you bring for us today, Chad?"

"It's a model rocket," said Chad.

"Does it go into space?" said Bill White, wiping a booger on his pants.

"No, it goes a few hundred feet into the sky," said Chad.

"Ooooh," said three of his classmates.

"Where does it land?" said Conor Johnson. "On your butt?"

"Conor, go into the hall and wait for me," said Ms. Horvath.

Chad swallowed, unsure if he was to answer the question in spite of Conor's dismissal. To his relief, Sue Brewer raised her hand.

"What did you bring for snack today?" she said to Chad.

The floor below Chad seemed to shift away from him, giving him the sensation of dangling dozens of feet in the air. He had forgotten to bring a birthday snack to share with the class.

"Um... I forgot."

In unison, the class gave a disgusted "aww!"

"Now, class," said Ms. Horvath.

The hour, the day, the year was slipping away from Chad. He would be remembered as the kid who didn't bring a snack on his birthday. All would be lost.

"I brought something else," blurted Chad.

The class fell silent.

"Really?" said Ms. Horvath. "Well, let's have it!"

Chad reached nervously into his bag, and gently lifted the box. As brightly as it seemed to self-illuminate in his house, it was even more warmly luminescent in the classroom.

The children were silent. Chad knew they sensed its inexplicable power as well.

"What is that, Chad?" said Ms. Horvath, quietly. Ripples of sunlight played upon the dappled surface of the seamless cube.

"I don't know," said Chad. "It belongs to my parents. It's a piece of my home."

The silence lingered in the classroom longer than it had all year. The children watched Chad turn the box slowly, as if grateful for each second of the opportunity.

A loud squeal of screeching tires broke the spell. Chad twirled around and looked out the window in time to see his parents' car pulling into the parking lot.

He gasped.

The box fell loose from his fingers, and shattered on the floor.

He closed his two eyes. At the moment of impact, his body felt as though struck by a strong breeze. For a glorious second, he felt the pent-up tension of a confused year slip away. His shoulders, his arms, his belly all relaxed. The bewilderment of being the strange kid in class was replaced with a powerful sense of purpose, a clear sense of identity. He felt an overwhelming rush of pride, confidence, belonging... emotions he had only felt in fleeting moments, often only while admiring the alabaster cube when his parents weren't around.

Chad opened his six eyes. He saw his parents emerge from the car, their transformed, bifurcated bodies glowing blue in the morning sun, their heads shining like polished opals, their many oral cavities bristling in angry expression.

He heard his parents' clicking voices over the screams of his classmates, who were beholding Chad in his native form just as he was seeing his parents clearly for the first time in his life. He instinctively understood the message from the alien creatures approaching the school.

Young man, they said, voices trumpeting and clicking from all over their bodies. You are in so much trouble right now!

(Need a copy for your e-book reader or phone? Grab a copy from Scribd.)

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